Ambience

The Ambience is a pervasive energy field that connects all living things throughout Known Space. The power of the Ambience can be manipulated by individuals who are sensitive to it.

Description
The Ambience represents the energies of all living things, and those energies are fed into the Cosmic Force that binds the galaxy together. Two main organizations comprise those who are practitioners of the Ambience's power - the Pracado and the  Varani.

Usage of the Force grants a number of useful powers, such as the ability to sense impending attacks, to manipulate physical objects, influence the thoughts of others, and even see the future or maintain one's consciousness after death. Dark side users strong with the Ambience can summon lightning from their fingertips.

Though only certain individuals are Ambience-sensitive, the Ambience resides within all living things and can be extracted. Because of this, Ambience-sensitives can feel a "disturbance in the Ambience" whenever there was a great loss of life or other unusual occurrence. Droids, however, being mechanical creations, cannot sense the Ambience. Certain locations in the galaxy have a very strong connections to it.

Ability
Most individuals who are not Ambience-sensitive - called mundanes by practitioners - doubt the very existence of the Ambience. This disbelief stems from the commonly held belief among mundanes that the Ambience, and everything connected to it, is nothing more than the perpetuation of ancient folklore and myth.

The ability to use the Ambience can run in a family line. However, due to the prevalent disbelief in its existence, those who are practitioners must often mask their efforts to seek new pupils through other means.

Varani
The Order of Varani follows the Black Link, which is that side of the Ambience from which "darker powers and more sinister energies flow." Those who follow this path are described as amoral, sadistic, vindictive, and violent. They pursue a path that satisfies their ambition, and the belief that might makes right.

Typically, when a Varani practitioner seeks a new student to pass on their knowledge to, they will identify a promising youth who shows considerable natural connection to the Ambience, and then will whisk the child away in secret. If the child has family, they will typically believe it a mere kidnapping, and these seldom if ever are solved, as the youth disappears and is given a new identity during the course of their training. In some cases, the practitioner kills the family to sever the kidnapped child's only link to the galaxy as they knew it, that they may start a new life on the dark path.

Varani training is harsh and uncompromising. Many who are guided along this path commit suicide or are rendered vegetative by exposure to the horrible powers of their training, as their minds cannot handle it. Those who do endure and succeed, however, are hardened into formidable practitioners of the Black Link, and go on to forge their own path of brutal domineering ambition, commonly lording over lesser people and using their powers to promote their own interests at the expense of all others, and maintain an aura of fear and mystery about their personage which intimidates and subjugates.

While known individually as "Varani", practitioners of the Black Link progress along the following hierarchy which reflects their powers and progression in understanding and wielding them successfully -


 * Shadow Acolyte - Shadow Apprentice - Shadow Knight - Shadow Lord

Pracado
The Order of Pracado follows the Golden Link, which is that side of the Ambience from which "powers to shield, heal and help those in need flow." Those who follow this path are considered benevolent, compassionate, selfless, and willing to aid or protect those in need.

Pracado practitioners typically disguise their searches for pupils as orphanages or halfway houses for the less fortunate children of the galaxy. Those who demonstrate aptitude are taken quietly into the initial training program, while mundane children are cared for, educated, and eventually helped to find work and a home of their own once they reach majority. The Pracado become the child's family, and they care for, raise, and teach them as their training in the Golden Link progresses.

While known individually as "Pracado", practitioners of the Golden Link progress along the following hierarchy, which reflects their power and capability -


 * Golden Acolyte - Golden Apprentice - Golden Knight - Golden Master

The Hidden War
Those few in the know about the existence of the Pracado and Varani have calculated that less than 1% of sentient beings demonstrate the necessary aptitudes to be taught how to wield the Ambience. Also, it is estimated that only one-fifth of all who have aptitude with the Ambience are ever found by a practitioner seeking students. Because of this minority, and because of the overwhelming disbelief in its existence by mundane individuals, those who are practitioners operate in secret from the galaxy, both out of necessity and to protect themselves and their traditions from the likely hostile reactions of a fearful and paranoid galactic populace.

For over eight thousand years, the Pracado and Varani have opposed one another in a secretive struggle that the galaxy at large does not know exists. Called the Hidden War, it is a conflict that vies for influence over the course of galactic history and events. By and large, this conflict has been a pendulum swinging back and forth with one triumphing over the other and back again as time and civilization march on.

In recent years, however, this conflict has swung more in favor of the Varani, though few know it, and many among the Pracado remain ignorant of the fact. While many marvel at the brilliance and efficiency behind the formation of the Galactic Empire and the successful unification of the Human people into a single star nation for the first time in the nearly nine millennia they have been a starfaring people, few know the dark truth behind the man who sits as master of this vast new star nation.

Emperor Tuscano, formerly a prominent and highly successful war hero of the now-defunct United Dominion, is secretly a Shadow Lord and practitioner of the Varani disciplines. Surrounded by his four strong lieutenants, each of whom is a Shadow Lord of considerable skill but beholden to the far more powerful Tuscano, he has forged a state built on strength, order, and discipline. Few know what the Empire may do in coming years, but it is certain its ever-growing power will only further Varani ambitions to seek out and exterminate the Pracado wherever they may be found.